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Shifting Sands: Chapter 5

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    And then one day, ███████ felt space itself warp and bend. She heard the rumblings echo through the walls. She heard the engines roar to life, then stall. She heard the klaxons begin to wail. She heard the First Mate screaming over the intercom for everyone to get to crash seats. She saw the scientists move for safety much too slowly.
    And she knew it was finally happening. At last. At long, long last, the event so many years prophesied was coming to pass. She liquified her bones and curled herself into the tightest ball she could, bracing herself to the test tube walls with flexible, cushioning tendrils.
    It happened.
    By the time she finally pulled herself together and regained consciousness, it was all over.
    Dead bodies littered the lab. The scientists had all been thrown to one end of the room where they lay with broken bodies, snapped necks, crooked tentacles, and still hearts. And every single other test subject in the tubes around her were dead too; at least, everything that had bones to break. She herself was fine though; very much shaken, and feeling sick, but she’d survived. She felt her egg, and it was intact.
    They had survived.
    She formed her entire body into a single muscly, spring-like limb, braced it against one wall of the tube, summoned all the power and strength she had, and then rammed herself full-force into the opposite wall. A tiny crack appeared. She took a moment to breath, then did it again. The crack widened. She did it one final time, the glass shattered, and then she was free.
    Really, truly free.
    One of the scientists in the room wasn’t quite dead. He looked up at her, coughing blood and blinking in helpless delirium. “H-h-help… Help me…” He managed to gasp, when he saw her silhouette standing over him.
    The time had come to fulfill her oath.
    As she stabbed him, she started her count. One.
    She broke into the other tubes, and ate some of the other test subjects, until she was feeling restored. She destroyed a few drones that had been summoned to contain her. Once the way was clear again, she ventured out to explore and escape and conquer.
    The ship was a fever dream of its former self, a desperate, chaotic, hopeless echo of forgotten glory. Walls were bent and crooked and warped, stained in places by blast marks or fluid leaks. The air stank of blood, burned plastics, and whatever chemical adhesive the repair nanobots were secreting in attempt to patch holes. The floor was covered in broken glass, thick as carpet in places, and it crinkled underfoot. Electrical lines spewed sparks. The malfunctioning life support chaotically shifted the humidity and pressure. Certain doors were wedged shut, certain hallways collapsed completely. Dead bodies were everywhere. Drones wandered the wreckage slowly and dumbly, like tanks rolling through the rubble of a fallen city, their treads struggling for purchase of the bricks and scaffold.
    And as for her, she gazed upon the carnage with glee and vigor and triumph, for she stood as the victor. The champion. The survivor.
    There were a few other survivors, though. Some of them were trapped in their rooms, some were roaming the halls, some were too injured to move. She dealt with them one by one as she found them.
    Two. Three. Four. Slow going, but steady. Eight. Nine. Ten.
    Some of the other survivors had found each other, and joined into small groups, so that they could have some company as they sat scared in the dark. Whenever she found such a group, she would appear as one of them, and infiltrate them, learn from them the locations of food, water, and other survivors, and then kill them all, one by one. It was great fun seeing the escalation of their fear and paranoia as they slowly lost a guessing game of “who’s-the-mimic”.
    Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four… She was highly efficient.
    After a few days of this hunting, she began to gather food, water, tools and equipment, and made a nest for herself in the lower levels of the ship. Once she had that, she would occasionally drag choice survivors there. If anybody seemed to possess any special skills or knowledge, she would crucify them on her wall, torture and hurt them until she’d extracted it. And it always worked. Officers, scientists, engineers, even hapless passengers, each was a wealth of information in his or her own way, and she learned many wonderful things.
    Finally, in a stroke of luck, she found the head security officer, and tortured him for the drone control codes. Once she had them, she reprogramed the drones into her own mindless slaves, and instructed them to destroy everyone but her. Anyone that felt fear, anybody with any aggressive chemical markers at all, they were to eliminate. But so long as she stayed calm herself, they would ignore her no matter what form she took. She pressed the button and gave the order, and they did.
    One hundred and seventy-nine. One hundred and eighty. She watched the camera feeds from her new slaves, and never lost count.
    Slowly and steadily, enemies and dangers disappeared.
    Very soon now, everybody else would be dead. All the scientists, all the crew, all the passengers, every last intelligent lifeform in this universe who ever could have threatened her or her child, all of them gone, without a memory or a plea.
    In honor of the occasion, she allowed her egg to grow again.
    And one day, deep in her secluded lair, she finally laid it, and held it in the palm of her hand: a small, sky-blue sphere that contained all she had left to love in this universe. All that remained of him, all she’d fought so hard to save. She hid it and covered it in a warm place.
    Now considering her greatest trials behind her, she began to think ahead, to grander plans beyond this miserable wreck. If she ever was to return home or move beyond this planet, she would need to either construct a new ship or repair this one, in whole or in part. Therefore, she would need access to the tractor beam-like gravity engines, for the heavy lifting and larger industry. That presented a problem, because the only way to directly override the safety locks would be to brave the boiling heat and radiation of the engine room long enough to make it to the controls.
    Now she stood before the sealed blast doors (warm to the touch) and wondered how she might do that. It would require armor of some type, or some new form with no cells to damage, or perhaps a kind of remote control.
    But then, at a message from the drones, she turned from the door and started for the ship’s lower levels.
    -7 lifeforms detected in sector 98, barricaded in room 98-18. No entry paths detected. The message had read.
    Seven lifeforms. The last group. The last bastion of life on this vessel. The last of her enemies. And, if her predictions were correct, the Captain was among them.
    She told the drones to stand down, for she’d been looking forward to this, and had in mind to handle these ones personally. Well… Most of them, at least. For the Captain himself, she had a more poetic end in mind. Since it was his pride that had doomed the mission, and his arrogance which had summoned all of fate’s wrath, and his fault that everyone had suffered so, she arranged a subtle, cunning trap for him. She would lure him out of his shelter, and leave clues to lead him all the way back, right to her original prison tube. There he would read a message from her, which detailed his fault in all its great and painful detail. Once he knew the full extent of his error, once the depth of his error had been made crystal clear, he would trigger a booby trap, and die by the hands of his own drones. Thus would his misplaced thirst for adventure and heroics would be his downfall one last time.
    She arranged the trap.
    And it was so.
    Two hundred and three.
    Then she slipped past the barricade, and emerged in the darkened room to behold the last six survivors. That was it; only six. Six scared, starving, helpless creatures, all alone, looking upon her with immense fear, as if they were seeing the devil himself. To suit the climactic moment, she shifted into the form of a great beast, a creature with claws, and wings, and terrible teeth, flaming eyes, and a sharp, knife-like tail. Something out of darkest legend. The last six screamed and cowered before her.
    With a hooked claw, she lashed out at the first. Two hundred and four.
    With the spear on her tail, she impaled the second. Two hundred and five.
    She bit off the head of the third. Two hundred and six.
    The fourth tried to save himself, tried to fight, tried to attack her with a broken chunk of pipe. Two hundred and seven.
    The fifth begged for mercy. “I’m SORRY!” He pleaded. “Y-y-you’re the shapeshifter! I remember you! I-I spoke out for you! I told the Captain to let you go! I filed complaints about the things they were doing to you! I told them to leave you alone! I’m not your enemy! P-p-please! Please, I’m not your enemy… Please don’t…” Two hundred and seven.
    And now the last. The very last. She spread her wings, and extended her claws, and preparing to finish her mission.
    But fate had one last surprise in store for her, for she recognized the very last one.
     “███████.” The oracle said.
    At the sound of her name, she paused. It wasn’t mercy, it wasn’t hesitation, it was simply curiosity; perhaps the charlatan had come up with one last sermon of heavenly wisdom? One last attempt to change her ways? She wondered what could possibly be said, here at the end of life.
    The oracle spoke. “In the name of the Creator God, I curse you.”
    “…Oh?” ███████ smiled, and cocked her head to one side. “You curse me, do you?”
    “I curse you.” The prophet repeated, her voice steady and fearless. “███████, you have deceived every single person you have ever spoken to. You have killed every single person who has ever reached out to you, and you have spurned the God who offered you mercy. Therefore, I curse the name of ███████, that it may be forgotten. Because you are filled with lies, I brand you a liar. Because you are filled with bloodlust, I brand you a monster. From this day forward, nobody will ever know your name, or know that it belongs to you, because whenever they look at you, they will see nothing but a creature and a horror. You shall have no friends, you shall have no caring family, you shall have no home, and nobody will ever love you again. You shall walk this planet not as yourself, but only as a boogieman, a cryptid, a nightmare, a dragon, and a beast. I hereby blot out the name of ███████, and brand you ‘the monster’ forever.”
    The monster stared at the prophet for a moment, and then scoffed, and opened her jaws to bite her in half.
    “And a monster’s end will surely meet you.” The prophet said, closing her seven eyes.
    Two hundred and eight.



    “A monster’s end”… For some reason the words stuck with her, tumbling in the back of her mind as she walked the halls of the empty wreck. What did that mean?
    It didn’t matter; she couldn’t let it matter, not yet, because now was a time for peace. She had finally fulfilled her vow. She could finally enjoy a moment of rest.
    But no sooner had she laid her head down to sleep, then her communicator beeped with another report from the drones: they’d found another group of survivors, a large group of nearly forty, who had escaped notice by fleeing to the hills outside the ship.
    What… There are more…? Would it never end? She roused herself, and went out to meet this new last group. She found them just where the drones had said, she infiltrated them just like normal, began to kill them per routine…
    But then… Then she met them.
    ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg@}Nᶌ.
    They were the last survivors from a population of mechanical organisms, whose red eyes blazed with electric fire, and whose metallic skin shone like the armor of olden knights. But despite their fierce appearance, the two were neither warriors or scientists, merely a couple peaceful beings whom fate had plunged into matters much greater than themselves.
    At first, she thought nothing of them, for metal could be killed just the same as flesh, and when their survival was on the line, she knew that these two would cower and run and turn paranoid, just like all the others. But then one night, right in the middle of her ordinary business, these two peaceful beings leapt to the defense of the others, and attacked her. They fought with a grit and a determination and a fearless resolve she was barely prepared to defend against. The blades in their hands and mouths whirled toward her, and one grazed her arm, drawing blood.
    She fled into the trees and hid herself, while her heart thundered in her chest and blood trickled from the wound. It wasn’t fatal, it wasn’t serious, it was nothing but a scratch really, but for some reason, it seemed to her symbolic. She remembered the prophet’s words. “A monster’s end…” And she finally realized what it meant. Of course… Everybody knows that a ‘monster’ doesn’t die from old age or infirmity or accident… No, everybody knows that the monster is SLAIN. It’s a story as old as storytelling itself, that the great beast must be vanquished by the brave and noble heroes. Things may go one way or go another, but in the end, the heroes stand up to defend the innocent, and the monster always dies.
    Despite all reason, something in the back of her head believed the prophet’s words.



    In the months that followed, it somehow, inexplicably proved true. ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg@}Nᶌ invaded her inner sanctum to allow the other survivors to escape, singlehandedly bested the drones she sent for them, walked unharmed through blazing heat and ionizing radiation, and stole the control unit for the ship’s last reactor. Then they established a home for themselves in a valley far away, and went there to live out the remainder of their lives in peace. The reactor control unit they hid, deep within a labyrinth of growing knives, where no fleshy creature would dare to tread.
    It seemed like happily ever after, a fate as brash as any fairytale.
    And as for her, she sat in her lair, and she knew that she had lost. Vanquished. Outwitted. Thwarted. A thousand cliché words for beaten.
    The prophet’s curse was real.
    But then a faint sound echoed through her lair, and past her despair. It was the faint noise of claws scratching at a rough surface. She turned toward her egg, and saw it rocking, from tiny movements within. It’s time! She realized. It’s finally time! Suddenly excited, she crouched down over the blue sphere to watch the moment of birth unfold. Even after all that’s happened, this is worth it… I have an ally. I have a child. The noise of the claws slowed down. “Come on…” She whispered. “You can do it… Be strong…” After a moment, the noise stopped altogether, and the egg wasn’t rocking anymore. “No, no, no, be strong, please!” She begged. “I need you here… I love you, you can’t give up now…! Please! Don’t you know how hard life is? You stupid child, this is but the first of many trials! Life is hard, life is cruel, and everything will one day stand against you! Soldiers, scruples, kings and gods, they want to entrap you just like this egg! And if you aren’t strong enough to be free, then you will die a prisoner! I cannot help you, least you forget that…! Please, please, please be strong enough to be free...!”
    As if it understood her, the child picked up its noisy struggle again, stronger and more determined this time. A crack appeared in the egg. The crack widened, and a piece chipped loose, revealing a claw beneath. And then more pieces chipped, and egg came apart, and her child stumbled out into the land of the living.
    A son.
    A son who was strong enough.
    She held out her arms.
    But when he saw her, he didn’t crawl towards her. He didn’t perk up at the welcome smell of his mother, he didn’t imprint on her or mimic her face, like babies usually do. Instead he recoiled from her, and began to crawl toward the exit of her lair, as one might instinctively flee from a predator. He took the form of the jagged metal littering the floor.
    For he didn’t see his mother. He didn’t see a person. Even he, a child too young to think, saw only a monster.
    “You… You… Why, you fool!” She grabbed him and picked him up and screamed at him. “After all, after ALL, even YOU don’t understand my ways?!? Everything I’ve ever done had a reason! I did it for me! I did it for you! For us! Who told you it was wrong? Who told you it was ‘evil’?? Did ‘God’ tell you so?” She shook him. “Well God is mistaken! Because when it’s down to survival, right disappears and so does wrong, and so does everything that makes you a monster, because sometimes all you can do is that which is bitterly, savagely cruel! A ‘monster’, am I? Fine, then go! Leave me, see where morals and decency get you out there, you snobby little mistake!” She threw him in the direction of the exit. “Leave, Leave, LEAVE! And don’t you EVER come back!”
    He hit the wall, rolled over a few times, then managed to pick himself up on narrow legs, and crawled as fast as he could to escape her. The noise of his frightened squealing cries echoed back up the passage for a few moments, and then he was gone.
    He was so young and scared that the drones would probably find his heartbeat and kill him.
    Such are the ways. She whispered silently as she stared after him. Such are the ways for those who are weak.
    She wished she could cry, but she couldn’t. Wished to beg but she wouldn’t. Wished to feel pain, but she didn’t dare. And some small part of her wished she could pray, but above all things, that was utterly and completely impossible. For she had decided long ago that no depth, no hardship, no pain, nothing could ever drag her to her knees. There was no compassion, no grace, no favor God could give her, there was nothing that could ever bend her head in humility. If the monster would have help, the monster would provide that help.
    So here, at the height of her despair, she prayed to herself.
    And bizarrely, she received an answer.
    A flash of light lit up her lair. When her vision cleared, she beheld a monster. Her heartrate picked up and her muscles tensed, for something about the creature filled her with a powerful sense of dread. Something about its crooked, hardened posture seemed savage and dangerous. Something about those eyes betrayed an absence of soul or mercy or feeling… And yet… Yet at the same time, the pose was identical to her own; and those eyes were the same she saw so often in the mirror.
    This terrible thing was herself.
    “Time travel exists.” Her other self replied, in answer to all the unspoken questions. “I have come from 4 days in the future.”
    That was a lot to take in, despite the simplicity of the concept. She stared at this other self for a moment while she considered the claim. After a moment’s though, she said. “…Prove it.”
    “Why?” The thing shrugged. “What else could I be? A dream? A hallucination? A vision the prophet sent from beyond her grave? Your mate, survived somehow and mocking your wretched current form?”
    She considered that, and realized the options were just that limited. “Fine then.” She hissed. “Tell me whatever it is you’ve come to tell me.”
    The monster showed her a pair of small, yellow machines. “Two incautious military men from a distant time will visit this crash site in 3 days’ time.” It informed her.” Kill them quickly, and steal these: the devices they use to travel though time. Learn to use them. Master them. They are the tools which will allow you to gain power over all attackers, cheat your fate, and fix your mistakes.”
    She stared at her other self for several seconds, considering its strange choice of words. “Mistakes?” She finally scoffed. “First my mate, then the scientists, then the survivors, then the prophet and even God himself, and now even you?!? Even myself?!? Has it really taken only 4 days to change my mind, make me forget that my actions were never accidental? Is that enough time for fate to break my resolve? Have you so quickly forgotten your vows and your purpose and your strength? Forgotten who you are? Do I have to kill YOU too?!?”
    “You’ve become hysterical.” Her future self growled lowly. “And I will defend myself if attacked. So calm yourself, and I will continue when you’re ready.”
    She took a deep breath. Forced herself to slow down, and leaned against a wall. “Continue.” She managed to snap.
    “The actions you took, that I took…” The monster began. “They were necessary, and you were right to do them, but they did earn their just reward; you cannot undo the curse. This means that no matter what you do, you cannot love your son any longer, for he will never love you. His mind is wild and fearful at this age, and he cannot understand you, so it would bring both of your great harm if you were to raise him yourself… But one day, he may be old and wise enough to look past his fear, and join you as a valuable ally. Therefore, you must give him away to someone else; set him up for a good future. You must give him a pathway to greatness, put him somewhere where he can learn, and grow in intelligence. A place where he can conquer, and kill, and learn the bitter price of survival. You must put him among people who see him as a monster, so that he will inherit the curse as well. Only then will he understand. I have put much thought into the matter in the past 4 days.”
    She considered the proposal. “But… When you say to give him to ‘someone else’, who do you mean? Everyone on this planet is dead. And those who are left know me too well to do me that favor…”
    “This planet has a race of intelligent natives.” To demonstrate, the monster shifted into the form of a hairy, bony biped with narrow eyes, five-fingered hands, and pants. “In less than a thousand years they will reach this continent. A few thousand more, and they will discover and explore this crash site. Somewhere among them you will find an appropriate host for him.”
    “Very well.”
    The monster began to activate one of the time machines, to leave and continue her own business.
    “Wait…” She held up a hand to stop her future self from disappearing. “With the time machine, will I be able to change my fate? Can I kill the heroes, and escape a monster’s end? Will I finally be able to get the best of fate…?”
    Her future self smiled. A savage, dangerous smile. “ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg@}Nᶌ are dead.” She declared.
    And with that, the monster disappeared.



    Things happened just as it had been said.
    She found and killed the time travelers. She undid the hatching of her son’s egg. She found a new and better host for him: StanFord Pines, a brilliant if foolish man of wealth and means, a fertile life that her son could assimilate as his own. So she buried the egg where Stanford would be sure to unearth it, and left the child to its own devices.

    And she did not consider him again.

Description
Shifting Sands: Chapter 5

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    And then one day, ███████ felt space itself warp and bend. She heard the rumblings echo through the walls. She heard the engines roar to life, then stall. She heard the klaxons begin to wail. She heard the First Mate screaming over the intercom for everyone to get to crash seats. She saw the scientists move for safety much too slowly.
    And she knew it was finally happening. At last. At long, long last, the event so many years prophesied was coming to pass. She liquified her bones and curled herself into the tightest ball she could, bracing herself to the test tube walls with flexible, cushioning tendrils.
    It happened.
    By the time she finally pulled herself together and regained consciousness, it was all over.
    Dead bodies littered the lab. The scientists had all been thrown to one end of the room where they lay with broken bodies, snapped necks, crooked tentacles, and still hearts. And every single other test subject in the tubes around her were dead too; at least, everything that had bones to break. She herself was fine though; very much shaken, and feeling sick, but she’d survived. She felt her egg, and it was intact.
    They had survived.
    She formed her entire body into a single muscly, spring-like limb, braced it against one wall of the tube, summoned all the power and strength she had, and then rammed herself full-force into the opposite wall. A tiny crack appeared. She took a moment to breath, then did it again. The crack widened. She did it one final time, the glass shattered, and then she was free.
    Really, truly free.
    One of the scientists in the room wasn’t quite dead. He looked up at her, coughing blood and blinking in helpless delirium. “H-h-help… Help me…” He managed to gasp, when he saw her silhouette standing over him.
    The time had come to fulfill her oath.
    As she stabbed him, she started her count. One.
    She broke into the other tubes, and ate some of the other test subjects, until she was feeling restored. She destroyed a few drones that had been summoned to contain her. Once the way was clear again, she ventured out to explore and escape and conquer.
    The ship was a fever dream of its former self, a desperate, chaotic, hopeless echo of forgotten glory. Walls were bent and crooked and warped, stained in places by blast marks or fluid leaks. The air stank of blood, burned plastics, and whatever chemical adhesive the repair nanobots were secreting in attempt to patch holes. The floor was covered in broken glass, thick as carpet in places, and it crinkled underfoot. Electrical lines spewed sparks. The malfunctioning life support chaotically shifted the humidity and pressure. Certain doors were wedged shut, certain hallways collapsed completely. Dead bodies were everywhere. Drones wandered the wreckage slowly and dumbly, like tanks rolling through the rubble of a fallen city, their treads struggling for purchase of the bricks and scaffold.
    And as for her, she gazed upon the carnage with glee and vigor and triumph, for she stood as the victor. The champion. The survivor.
    There were a few other survivors, though. Some of them were trapped in their rooms, some were roaming the halls, some were too injured to move. She dealt with them one by one as she found them.
    Two. Three. Four. Slow going, but steady. Eight. Nine. Ten.
    Some of the other survivors had found each other, and joined into small groups, so that they could have some company as they sat scared in the dark. Whenever she found such a group, she would appear as one of them, and infiltrate them, learn from them the locations of food, water, and other survivors, and then kill them all, one by one. It was great fun seeing the escalation of their fear and paranoia as they slowly lost a guessing game of “who’s-the-mimic”.
    Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four… She was highly efficient.
    After a few days of this hunting, she began to gather food, water, tools and equipment, and made a nest for herself in the lower levels of the ship. Once she had that, she would occasionally drag choice survivors there. If anybody seemed to possess any special skills or knowledge, she would crucify them on her wall, torture and hurt them until she’d extracted it. And it always worked. Officers, scientists, engineers, even hapless passengers, each was a wealth of information in his or her own way, and she learned many wonderful things.
    Finally, in a stroke of luck, she found the head security officer, and tortured him for the drone control codes. Once she had them, she reprogramed the drones into her own mindless slaves, and instructed them to destroy everyone but her. Anyone that felt fear, anybody with any aggressive chemical markers at all, they were to eliminate. But so long as she stayed calm herself, they would ignore her no matter what form she took. She pressed the button and gave the order, and they did.
    One hundred and seventy-nine. One hundred and eighty. She watched the camera feeds from her new slaves, and never lost count.
    Slowly and steadily, enemies and dangers disappeared.
    Very soon now, everybody else would be dead. All the scientists, all the crew, all the passengers, every last intelligent lifeform in this universe who ever could have threatened her or her child, all of them gone, without a memory or a plea.
    In honor of the occasion, she allowed her egg to grow again.
    And one day, deep in her secluded lair, she finally laid it, and held it in the palm of her hand: a small, sky-blue sphere that contained all she had left to love in this universe. All that remained of him, all she’d fought so hard to save. She hid it and covered it in a warm place.
    Now considering her greatest trials behind her, she began to think ahead, to grander plans beyond this miserable wreck. If she ever was to return home or move beyond this planet, she would need to either construct a new ship or repair this one, in whole or in part. Therefore, she would need access to the tractor beam-like gravity engines, for the heavy lifting and larger industry. That presented a problem, because the only way to directly override the safety locks would be to brave the boiling heat and radiation of the engine room long enough to make it to the controls.
    Now she stood before the sealed blast doors (warm to the touch) and wondered how she might do that. It would require armor of some type, or some new form with no cells to damage, or perhaps a kind of remote control.
    But then, at a message from the drones, she turned from the door and started for the ship’s lower levels.
    -7 lifeforms detected in sector 98, barricaded in room 98-18. No entry paths detected. The message had read.
    Seven lifeforms. The last group. The last bastion of life on this vessel. The last of her enemies. And, if her predictions were correct, the Captain was among them.
    She told the drones to stand down, for she’d been looking forward to this, and had in mind to handle these ones personally. Well… Most of them, at least. For the Captain himself, she had a more poetic end in mind. Since it was his pride that had doomed the mission, and his arrogance which had summoned all of fate’s wrath, and his fault that everyone had suffered so, she arranged a subtle, cunning trap for him. She would lure him out of his shelter, and leave clues to lead him all the way back, right to her original prison tube. There he would read a message from her, which detailed his fault in all its great and painful detail. Once he knew the full extent of his error, once the depth of his error had been made crystal clear, he would trigger a booby trap, and die by the hands of his own drones. Thus would his misplaced thirst for adventure and heroics would be his downfall one last time.
    She arranged the trap.
    And it was so.
    Two hundred and three.
    Then she slipped past the barricade, and emerged in the darkened room to behold the last six survivors. That was it; only six. Six scared, starving, helpless creatures, all alone, looking upon her with immense fear, as if they were seeing the devil himself. To suit the climactic moment, she shifted into the form of a great beast, a creature with claws, and wings, and terrible teeth, flaming eyes, and a sharp, knife-like tail. Something out of darkest legend. The last six screamed and cowered before her.
    With a hooked claw, she lashed out at the first. Two hundred and four.
    With the spear on her tail, she impaled the second. Two hundred and five.
    She bit off the head of the third. Two hundred and six.
    The fourth tried to save himself, tried to fight, tried to attack her with a broken chunk of pipe. Two hundred and seven.
    The fifth begged for mercy. “I’m SORRY!” He pleaded. “Y-y-you’re the shapeshifter! I remember you! I-I spoke out for you! I told the Captain to let you go! I filed complaints about the things they were doing to you! I told them to leave you alone! I’m not your enemy! P-p-please! Please, I’m not your enemy… Please don’t…” Two hundred and seven.
    And now the last. The very last. She spread her wings, and extended her claws, and preparing to finish her mission.
    But fate had one last surprise in store for her, for she recognized the very last one.
     “███████.” The oracle said.
    At the sound of her name, she paused. It wasn’t mercy, it wasn’t hesitation, it was simply curiosity; perhaps the charlatan had come up with one last sermon of heavenly wisdom? One last attempt to change her ways? She wondered what could possibly be said, here at the end of life.
    The oracle spoke. “In the name of the Creator God, I curse you.”
    “…Oh?” ███████ smiled, and cocked her head to one side. “You curse me, do you?”
    “I curse you.” The prophet repeated, her voice steady and fearless. “███████, you have deceived every single person you have ever spoken to. You have killed every single person who has ever reached out to you, and you have spurned the God who offered you mercy. Therefore, I curse the name of ███████, that it may be forgotten. Because you are filled with lies, I brand you a liar. Because you are filled with bloodlust, I brand you a monster. From this day forward, nobody will ever know your name, or know that it belongs to you, because whenever they look at you, they will see nothing but a creature and a horror. You shall have no friends, you shall have no caring family, you shall have no home, and nobody will ever love you again. You shall walk this planet not as yourself, but only as a boogieman, a cryptid, a nightmare, a dragon, and a beast. I hereby blot out the name of ███████, and brand you ‘the monster’ forever.”
    The monster stared at the prophet for a moment, and then scoffed, and opened her jaws to bite her in half.
    “And a monster’s end will surely meet you.” The prophet said, closing her seven eyes.
    Two hundred and eight.



    “A monster’s end”… For some reason the words stuck with her, tumbling in the back of her mind as she walked the halls of the empty wreck. What did that mean?
    It didn’t matter; she couldn’t let it matter, not yet, because now was a time for peace. She had finally fulfilled her vow. She could finally enjoy a moment of rest.
    But no sooner had she laid her head down to sleep, then her communicator beeped with another report from the drones: they’d found another group of survivors, a large group of nearly forty, who had escaped notice by fleeing to the hills outside the ship.
    What… There are more…? Would it never end? She roused herself, and went out to meet this new last group. She found them just where the drones had said, she infiltrated them just like normal, began to kill them per routine…
    But then… Then she met them.
    ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg@}Nᶌ.
    They were the last survivors from a population of mechanical organisms, whose red eyes blazed with electric fire, and whose metallic skin shone like the armor of olden knights. But despite their fierce appearance, the two were neither warriors or scientists, merely a couple peaceful beings whom fate had plunged into matters much greater than themselves.
    At first, she thought nothing of them, for metal could be killed just the same as flesh, and when their survival was on the line, she knew that these two would cower and run and turn paranoid, just like all the others. But then one night, right in the middle of her ordinary business, these two peaceful beings leapt to the defense of the others, and attacked her. They fought with a grit and a determination and a fearless resolve she was barely prepared to defend against. The blades in their hands and mouths whirled toward her, and one grazed her arm, drawing blood.
    She fled into the trees and hid herself, while her heart thundered in her chest and blood trickled from the wound. It wasn’t fatal, it wasn’t serious, it was nothing but a scratch really, but for some reason, it seemed to her symbolic. She remembered the prophet’s words. “A monster’s end…” And she finally realized what it meant. Of course… Everybody knows that a ‘monster’ doesn’t die from old age or infirmity or accident… No, everybody knows that the monster is SLAIN. It’s a story as old as storytelling itself, that the great beast must be vanquished by the brave and noble heroes. Things may go one way or go another, but in the end, the heroes stand up to defend the innocent, and the monster always dies.
    Despite all reason, something in the back of her head believed the prophet’s words.



    In the months that followed, it somehow, inexplicably proved true. ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg@}Nᶌ invaded her inner sanctum to allow the other survivors to escape, singlehandedly bested the drones she sent for them, walked unharmed through blazing heat and ionizing radiation, and stole the control unit for the ship’s last reactor. Then they established a home for themselves in a valley far away, and went there to live out the remainder of their lives in peace. The reactor control unit they hid, deep within a labyrinth of growing knives, where no fleshy creature would dare to tread.
    It seemed like happily ever after, a fate as brash as any fairytale.
    And as for her, she sat in her lair, and she knew that she had lost. Vanquished. Outwitted. Thwarted. A thousand cliché words for beaten.
    The prophet’s curse was real.
    But then a faint sound echoed through her lair, and past her despair. It was the faint noise of claws scratching at a rough surface. She turned toward her egg, and saw it rocking, from tiny movements within. It’s time! She realized. It’s finally time! Suddenly excited, she crouched down over the blue sphere to watch the moment of birth unfold. Even after all that’s happened, this is worth it… I have an ally. I have a child. The noise of the claws slowed down. “Come on…” She whispered. “You can do it… Be strong…” After a moment, the noise stopped altogether, and the egg wasn’t rocking anymore. “No, no, no, be strong, please!” She begged. “I need you here… I love you, you can’t give up now…! Please! Don’t you know how hard life is? You stupid child, this is but the first of many trials! Life is hard, life is cruel, and everything will one day stand against you! Soldiers, scruples, kings and gods, they want to entrap you just like this egg! And if you aren’t strong enough to be free, then you will die a prisoner! I cannot help you, least you forget that…! Please, please, please be strong enough to be free...!”
    As if it understood her, the child picked up its noisy struggle again, stronger and more determined this time. A crack appeared in the egg. The crack widened, and a piece chipped loose, revealing a claw beneath. And then more pieces chipped, and egg came apart, and her child stumbled out into the land of the living.
    A son.
    A son who was strong enough.
    She held out her arms.
    But when he saw her, he didn’t crawl towards her. He didn’t perk up at the welcome smell of his mother, he didn’t imprint on her or mimic her face, like babies usually do. Instead he recoiled from her, and began to crawl toward the exit of her lair, as one might instinctively flee from a predator. He took the form of the jagged metal littering the floor.
    For he didn’t see his mother. He didn’t see a person. Even he, a child too young to think, saw only a monster.
    “You… You… Why, you fool!” She grabbed him and picked him up and screamed at him. “After all, after ALL, even YOU don’t understand my ways?!? Everything I’ve ever done had a reason! I did it for me! I did it for you! For us! Who told you it was wrong? Who told you it was ‘evil’?? Did ‘God’ tell you so?” She shook him. “Well God is mistaken! Because when it’s down to survival, right disappears and so does wrong, and so does everything that makes you a monster, because sometimes all you can do is that which is bitterly, savagely cruel! A ‘monster’, am I? Fine, then go! Leave me, see where morals and decency get you out there, you snobby little mistake!” She threw him in the direction of the exit. “Leave, Leave, LEAVE! And don’t you EVER come back!”
    He hit the wall, rolled over a few times, then managed to pick himself up on narrow legs, and crawled as fast as he could to escape her. The noise of his frightened squealing cries echoed back up the passage for a few moments, and then he was gone.
    He was so young and scared that the drones would probably find his heartbeat and kill him.
    Such are the ways. She whispered silently as she stared after him. Such are the ways for those who are weak.
    She wished she could cry, but she couldn’t. Wished to beg but she wouldn’t. Wished to feel pain, but she didn’t dare. And some small part of her wished she could pray, but above all things, that was utterly and completely impossible. For she had decided long ago that no depth, no hardship, no pain, nothing could ever drag her to her knees. There was no compassion, no grace, no favor God could give her, there was nothing that could ever bend her head in humility. If the monster would have help, the monster would provide that help.
    So here, at the height of her despair, she prayed to herself.
    And bizarrely, she received an answer.
    A flash of light lit up her lair. When her vision cleared, she beheld a monster. Her heartrate picked up and her muscles tensed, for something about the creature filled her with a powerful sense of dread. Something about its crooked, hardened posture seemed savage and dangerous. Something about those eyes betrayed an absence of soul or mercy or feeling… And yet… Yet at the same time, the pose was identical to her own; and those eyes were the same she saw so often in the mirror.
    This terrible thing was herself.
    “Time travel exists.” Her other self replied, in answer to all the unspoken questions. “I have come from 4 days in the future.”
    That was a lot to take in, despite the simplicity of the concept. She stared at this other self for a moment while she considered the claim. After a moment’s though, she said. “…Prove it.”
    “Why?” The thing shrugged. “What else could I be? A dream? A hallucination? A vision the prophet sent from beyond her grave? Your mate, survived somehow and mocking your wretched current form?”
    She considered that, and realized the options were just that limited. “Fine then.” She hissed. “Tell me whatever it is you’ve come to tell me.”
    The monster showed her a pair of small, yellow machines. “Two incautious military men from a distant time will visit this crash site in 3 days’ time.” It informed her.” Kill them quickly, and steal these: the devices they use to travel though time. Learn to use them. Master them. They are the tools which will allow you to gain power over all attackers, cheat your fate, and fix your mistakes.”
    She stared at her other self for several seconds, considering its strange choice of words. “Mistakes?” She finally scoffed. “First my mate, then the scientists, then the survivors, then the prophet and even God himself, and now even you?!? Even myself?!? Has it really taken only 4 days to change my mind, make me forget that my actions were never accidental? Is that enough time for fate to break my resolve? Have you so quickly forgotten your vows and your purpose and your strength? Forgotten who you are? Do I have to kill YOU too?!?”
    “You’ve become hysterical.” Her future self growled lowly. “And I will defend myself if attacked. So calm yourself, and I will continue when you’re ready.”
    She took a deep breath. Forced herself to slow down, and leaned against a wall. “Continue.” She managed to snap.
    “The actions you took, that I took…” The monster began. “They were necessary, and you were right to do them, but they did earn their just reward; you cannot undo the curse. This means that no matter what you do, you cannot love your son any longer, for he will never love you. His mind is wild and fearful at this age, and he cannot understand you, so it would bring both of your great harm if you were to raise him yourself… But one day, he may be old and wise enough to look past his fear, and join you as a valuable ally. Therefore, you must give him away to someone else; set him up for a good future. You must give him a pathway to greatness, put him somewhere where he can learn, and grow in intelligence. A place where he can conquer, and kill, and learn the bitter price of survival. You must put him among people who see him as a monster, so that he will inherit the curse as well. Only then will he understand. I have put much thought into the matter in the past 4 days.”
    She considered the proposal. “But… When you say to give him to ‘someone else’, who do you mean? Everyone on this planet is dead. And those who are left know me too well to do me that favor…”
    “This planet has a race of intelligent natives.” To demonstrate, the monster shifted into the form of a hairy, bony biped with narrow eyes, five-fingered hands, and pants. “In less than a thousand years they will reach this continent. A few thousand more, and they will discover and explore this crash site. Somewhere among them you will find an appropriate host for him.”
    “Very well.”
    The monster began to activate one of the time machines, to leave and continue her own business.
    “Wait…” She held up a hand to stop her future self from disappearing. “With the time machine, will I be able to change my fate? Can I kill the heroes, and escape a monster’s end? Will I finally be able to get the best of fate…?”
    Her future self smiled. A savage, dangerous smile. “ƉN::ᶌ and Ɖg@}Nᶌ are dead.” She declared.
    And with that, the monster disappeared.



    Things happened just as it had been said.
    She found and killed the time travelers. She undid the hatching of her son’s egg. She found a new and better host for him: StanFord Pines, a brilliant if foolish man of wealth and means, a fertile life that her son could assimilate as his own. So she buried the egg where Stanford would be sure to unearth it, and left the child to its own devices.

    And she did not consider him again.